


quiet night

by ncfan



Series: Helcaraxë [3]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, Gen, Helcaraxë, Homesickness, Stars, remembering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 11:01:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncfan/pseuds/ncfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finrod contemplates the stars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	quiet night

He's ignoring the pain in the pit of his stomach. He's ignoring the cold wind cutting through his skin. He's ignoring the eerie wailing that reaches his ears from elsewhere in the camp. Findaráto can still do that, you see. The time when it's all he can hear has not yet come.

Findaráto is also ignoring the profound absence he feels at his left-hand shoulder, ignoring the profound silence where there ought to be a knowledgeable, confident voice sounding beside him. He mustn't think about that.

Instead, he stares up out on a cold, crisp black sky, and marvels at the clarity of the stars.

In Aman, during the days of the Trees' full splendor, the sky was always covered with a sheen of gold or silver. The stars were visible at every hour of the day, though they were more easily spotted through the silver light of Telperion than Laurelin's golden light. When they were traveling through Aman in the dark, Findaráto never stared upwards. He always stared straight ahead, and tried not to notice the blighted darkness around him.

Now, on the Grinding Ice, there's little else to do when they aren't on the move, except to stare up at the stars.

It really is remarkable, how well Findaráto can see them. He can trace every constellation in the trackless sky with ease. He sees scintillating white, red, blue, gold wheeling about in the sky overhead. Findaráto imagines that the heavens are an ocean suspended in space, and the stars are fish swimming in the sky. The image brings a smile to his face where there has been none since darkness fell over Aman.

The smile shrivels and dies away as he remembers, though. Amarië had loved the stars as well. When they wed, Findaráto had wanted to bring her to Alqualondë, to Tol Eressëa, where the light of the Trees was not so strong, and the stars could be seen with the greatest clarity anywhere in Aman.

Alqualondë is stained red with blood. This darkness is not the darkness of the waning of Laurelin or Telperion—it is the darkness of their deaths. Amarië is not with him, and he will likely never look on her again.

There's little else to do but let the cold fill up his bones, until he has to move again.

**Author's Note:**

> Findaráto—Finrod


End file.
